Allahabad High Court Directs Omaxe Buildhome To Deposit ₹25 Crore, Release 50 Additional Flats In Stalled Noida Projects
Last month, the Allahabad High Court directed Omaxe Buildhome Ltd. to deposit Rs. 25 crores and release 50 flats in addition to the 170 already released in favour of the home buyers in stalled projects in Noida.
Omaxe Buildhome Ltd., the builder/ developer, leased land from New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) for development of housing projects named Grand Omaxe and Forest Spa. Petitioners, homebuyers in these two projects, approached the High Court since tripartite agreements were not being executed in their favour despite having paid full price of the flats to the builder.
Authority was not executing the same as the builder had failed to clear the dues amounting to Rs. 250 crores under the lease agreement.
While issuing notice to the builder/developer, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court had directed that subject to the payment of entire dues, NOIDA shall not issue any occupation/ completion certificate to Omaxe for any of its projects within its jurisdiction. Omaxe filed an SLP before the Supreme Court, which was dismissed.
The bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Anish Kumar Gupta noted that the State Government had issued a scheme to complete stalled projects in the NCR region by giving various relaxations to the builders/ developers. Taking its benefit, Omaxe deposited more that Rs. 93 crores (25% of the total dues). Pursuant to this, 170 flats of 678 pending were released and sub-lease deeds were directed to be executed.
The Court noted that the next installments were due on 15.10.2025, 15.04.2026, 15.10.2026 and 15.04.2027. Counsel for builder argued that a civil revision had been filed against the recalculation of charges by the Authority. However, he also proposed that the builder was ready to deposit Rs. 25 crores if the authority released 50 more flats.
Since there was no objection by the Authority on this proposal, the Court directed that
“a) On deposit of Rs. 25,000,0000/- by the Developer/ Builder within two weeks from today, 50 additional flats, apart from 170 flats, would stand released.
b) The list of home buyers alongwith date of Buyer Builder Agreement/Date of Allotment as provided by the Developer along with supplementary affidavits would form the basis for execution of sub lease deeds in respect of the flats which have already been released or would stand released in terms of the instant order.”
Since the counsel for the homebuyers pressed to keep the case pending so that status report can be sought from the developer and New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, the Court directed that modified the earlier interim order with the aforesaid directions and directed NOIDA to file status report on the next date of hearing.
Case Title: Tarun Kapoor And 29 Others v. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority And 2 Others [WRIT - C No. - 10854 of 2018]
Counsel for Petitioner : Nipun Singh, Naman Agrawal
Counsel for Respondent : Ankit Singh,Anuj Srivastava,C.S.C.,Kaushalendra Nath Singh,Kunal Ravi Singh,Manjari Singh,Pankaj Dubey,Priyanka Midha,Raghuvansh Misra,Ram M. Kaushik,Shikhar Kaushal